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MDM Atari Retro Expansion Card
October 15, 2003
The Atari Retro card is cross-platform, so that anyone with a Palm OS 5 device like the Tungsten 3, Zire 71, Handspring Treo 600 can use it, as well as Windows Mobile Pocket PC 2002 or higher and the Nokia 3650 and the new N-Gage. That’s a good thing, since this is gaming goodness at its best. The card features seven classic Atari games: Adventure, Asteroids, Breakout, Centipede, Missile Command, Pong, and Yar’s Revenge. It’s hard to believe that I’m even writing reviews on these games, but since some of you may never have experienced their pure gaming goodness before, here goes:
Adventure is a little tricky to describe— part primitive RPG, part maze, part action/adventure (hence the name, of course). You’re a brave explorer trying to defeat the dragons and resue the enchanted chalice. This isn’t the sort of game you’ll want to play unless you have fond memories of it— especially when you consider modern games like Final Fantasy and Dungeon Seige/Diablo. But if you actually remember playing this one on your old Atari all those years ago, you’ll absolutely love it. This is an incredibly true port of the original.
Asteroids is another old favorite that hardly needs a descriptio— fly that little ship around and blast all of the asteroids and alien ships out of the sky. The colors and sound effects are all dead on, and the controls are great too. Granted you’ll be playing with a d-pad or 5-way Navigator, not a joystick, but you can hardly tell the difference. Breakout, the next game on the list, is another complete classic. You may not have played it before, but I bet you’ve played something similar— Arkanoid, Ababall, Atom Smash, Cubicle Chaos, Ricochet— Breakout is one of the most often-imitated games I can possibly think of. The original doesn’t have all of the fancy hi-res graphics, falling powerups, or gimmicks of some of the more recent clones, but it has plenty of good old-fashioned fun.
Centipede and Missile Command are two more games that shouldn’t need much of an introduction. Centipede is not the best game in the bunch, but part of my bias could be the fact that I’ve played the arcade version much more than the Atari version, and of course the arcade has much better graphics and sound. Missile Command is just a fun and challenging game— how long can I defend those cities against the evil alien attack? This one is a little harder to play with a d-pad than some of the others, considering its speedy gameplay, but it is still rather fun.
Pong of course is the game that started it all. While I can’t really say that it’s the “funnest” game on the card, it certainly deserves a place here due to its standing as the grandfather of them all. And even my parents, who don’t really understand my love for gaming, have played several games of Pong now that it’s available on the card. Again, not the sort of thing that you may buy this card for, but it certainly belongs here. The last Atari Retro game here is Yar’s Revenge, and this one is devilishly hard! It’s a shooter in some ways, in that you have to destroy an alien ship after you get through the enemy shield, and you also have to avoid missiles, “swirls” and your own cannon! Tricky and infuriating yes, but also fun. Unless you’ve played this one before, you’ll need to fully read the instructions.
This card is available for $29.95, which I consider to be something of a bargain. That’s just a little bit over $4 per game, and I think that almost anyone can get $4 of value out of each one of these classics. I think I’ve gotten at least $10 out of Breakout alone. You can order it online at the Palm store web site. It’s the perfect treat for anyone who can appreciate some classic games. Sometimes it’s not about the fancy 3D graphics and stereo sound, it’s about nothing more than pure fun, enjoyment, and nostalgia. And the Atari Retro game card from MDM has all of those bases covered.
PocketGoddess Rating for the MDM Atari Retro Expansion Card: 
